Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Alright, Who's The Joker Who Handed Out Blanks?

Dare I say that it's all but over for Newell's Old Boys in the Copa Libertadores?

With the strongest starting line up the team has fielded in years, La Lepra had to settle for a 0-0 deadlock against first round rivals Emelec. That was not the outcome we were looking for from the home leg.

It's not like anyone can say that Sensini didn't do everything he could to ensure a victory. When it was pretty obvious that Emelec weren't going to be much of a threat to score, he brought on the reinforcements. First there was Diego Torres for Nahuel Roselli (a forward for a midfielder,) followed by Christian Sánchez Prette taking the place of Lucas Bernardi (a playmaker for a defensive midfielder.) Juan Quiroga coming on for Jorge Achucarro (a wingback at best for a forward) was a mere afterthought, with only some ten minutes left to play.

Below are the highlights, such as they are:

From what I've read, and upon viewing the above video footage, Newell's had the better of the chances. Problem is, of course, once the final whistle blows the only thing that counts is the number of times you put the ball in the back of the net... and today no one was able to produce anything even close to a goal.

Now Newell's only hope to gain the group stage of the Copa is to do so in Equador, with that match schedule for Febuary 10th. For now, it's on to the opening march of the Clausura where Newell's will host Independiente.

1 comment:

Jeremy said...

It wasn't pretty. They gave up way to0 many balls and lost several chances in front of goal because of sloppy ball handling. They just played sloppy overall, and even then they way outplayed Emelec.

Play actually stopped for a few minutes because the lights wouldn't come on, which probably didn't help any.

I thought Quiroga on was Sensini deciding to protect the draw.

The trip to Ecuador is still winnable and any draw other than 0-0 sends Newell's through.

We'll see what happens to start the Clausura. A bad showing and they may run out the reserves in Ecuador.